


that wide-eyed kind of hunger

by kenopsia (indie)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Even when that guy could not be more obvious, Food and dieting issues, M/M, Pining, Self Esteem Issues, Wondering if the guy you're sleeping with is into you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-08-06 19:20:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16393643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/pseuds/kenopsia
Summary: Lovett had assumed that after the final special was done and dusted, he was going to be able to put a bagel in each hand. He was looking forward to it, actually. Practically had it on the calendar. He was going to regress back to the way his body looked when regularly processing two AM leftover tacos and the twice-weekly strawberry milkshakes and chicken nuggets, and that was going to be fine.Instead, Lovett gets down to his goal weight and suddenly Tommy is into him, which is unexpected, but Lovett has never looked a gift blow-job in the mouth.





	1. lovett

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to tag for this. Food and weight related anxiety and diet culture at canon levels, if you've been listening to Lovett bash his beautiful body for the last few months and be miserable about food. Thank you to Persuna for chatting this fic over with me, and BeginningwithA who made sure this fic was structurally sound. Stay tuned for pt 2, which is in Tommy's POV. 
> 
> Pls stay classy.

The day Lovett decides he’s camera ready, he looks at Tommy, high on his own sleep deprivation and a measure of self-congratulatory success and says, “Tommy. I have abs now, look,” cheekily flashing his stomach. What is the point if youaren’t going to brag about them? “You can touch if you want; I can tell you’re dying to.”

Instead of laughing with him and maybe being a touch genuine with a complement — because when you’ve got a perfect physique, you can be generous with the  _ you looked good at the gym yesterday _ s — Tommy takes a step towards him.

Lovett lets go of the hem of his tee, hands gone dumb as Tommy moves into proximity. “What are you doing? I cannot be convinced to climb into a recycling bin anymore;” he scoffs, “I’m one of the cool kids now. I’m basically a jock.”

“I’m not trying to recycle you,” Tommy says, mouth curling into an impish smile, which was devastating, really messing with Lovett’s vitals, “you said I could touch.”

“Ah,” Lovett says, mouth clicking. His heart starts kicking in his ribs, punishingly, because Tommy is fucking around but Lovett started it, “by all means.”

Tommy’s fingers are warm at Lovett’s waist, ticklish, but firmer as he felt the carved lines of Lovett’s temporarily managed core in cautious sweeps. Lovett could feel the precise drag of Tommy’s calluses and he was intensely aware that they were at work and had been prepping alone in the conference room, but that wasn’t a guaranteed fact of the universe. 

“You look fantastic,” Tommy says, looking earnest. 

“Thanks,” Lovett says. He’d bought several new shirts when he’d started his painful slide down the BMI chart. Tommy isn’t wrong: the one he’s wearing is snug over his pecs and loose over his stomach in a very flattering way.

Tommy’s hand is still on Lovett’s stomach, which is going to be a problem soon and Tommy is going to think he’s pathetic and Lovett isn’t going to find fair at all. He was picturing the rest of the week, now: he was going to have to spend it being completely over-the-top and hilariously mean to Tommy in ad reads until they were both over this and, to reiterate: nothing was fair. 

Lovett is about to smack Tommy’s hand away, which is counterintuitive because he also kind of wants it to be his cause of death, when Tommy brings his other hand to Lovett’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. 

“Hey,” he says. He’s too close. Lovett’s brain is ringing the main alarm bells, secondary alarms, and flashing lights are going off. He pictures the door bursting open and an intern popping in, the way Tommy would dart away from him, maybe making a joke.

Anything that happened now was definitely Tommy’s fault, because he’s touching Lovett and moving into his space and Lovett feels sick with the anxious copper taste that floods his mouth. It turns out, though, that his body whipped up all that fight or flight juice for nothing when all Tommy says, warm, ‘s: “You got this.”

And then he’s gone, moving out of Lovett’s space and settling back down at his computer.

Tommy leaves work first, slipping out without even harnessing Lucca, just hefting her to his shoulder like some kind of wholesome, puppy-carrying firefighter and rushing out. Lovett goes home with Favs, jittery enough with nerves and ambient anxiety that he found himself snapping at him for minor traffic offenses. 

“Hey buddy,” Favs says, pulling into Lovett’s driveway. “I don’t want to like, dip into anything that isn’t my business but, listen, you’re kind of being a cranky toad right now.” 

“Fuck you!” Lovett says, which admittedly, already seemed like an overreaction even as he was saying it. “Sorry. I haven’t had a doughnut in two weeks.”

“We’re going to get one now,” Favs says, taking his foot off of the brake and rolling backwards. “This is ridiculous. You’re fine. The people watching us are going to be the same people that watch the livestream every week, and you don’t even put on real jeans for most of those.”

“No,” Lovett says, cracking his door to avoid Favs zooming off with he and Pundit along for the ride. “Sorry, I’m going to sleep in in the morning and come back in not a dick, I promise.”

“Alright,” he says, fixing him with a look. “Don’t go crazy over this HBO thing. It’s going to come and go and get the same views as our download numbers and we’re going to feel like asses.”

“That was strangely comforting,” Lovett acknowledges. 

Favs reaches over to ruffle Pundit’s fur, just behind the ears before he pulls out of the driveway, telling her,  “Be nice to your dad, his blood sugar is all out of whack,” as he starts to swivel. 

 

*

 

At the office, he keeps a full pack of celery and out of exaggerated misery, does not even wash them, just eats them with sad-cow eyes that he points at anyone who gazes at him for more than a second. 

“I’m not  _ hungry, _ ” Lovett explains at one point, to a visiting Emily who want him to take a break with her to go get tacos across the street. “I definitely had a lean protein lunch. I just have the chews right now.”

“The chews,” Emily says, amused. Something happens with her face sometimes, some quirk of her happiness that lights her up. The fact that he can make it happen is among his favourite things. “Is that like. When your mouth is bored?”

Lovett puts more celery in his mouth, loudly. He derives no joy from it. “That is it, exactly.” 

Before Emily leaves, she spends a few minutes pressing a thumb against his shoulder. “This is very good,” she says. Lovett preens under the uncomplicated pride he feels under Emily’s uncomplicated complement. 

“Thank you,” he grins, leaning back and putting both hands behind his head. 

Emily makes sound that would make a lesser man feel objectified and eyes his arms. He knows she’s only putting up with dieting Lovett because she knows the importance of one moment, immortalized forever; he was the one that taste tested dozens of sugar alternatives for her morning coffees before her wedding. He knows she wants Taco Lovett back, because she’s made no secret about it. 

“After the midterms,” he promises her, like he has every time he’s abandoned Emily to eat tacos or drink mudslides alone. They’ll be celebratory or sulking lunches. He’s got all the bases covered. 

They record the pod later that night and Lovett steals Favs’ chair. “Listen,” Lovett says, “I have this very small window where I am looking very good and I need to maximize my time with the good angles, all of which I learned on myspace in the early aughts.”

Favs laughs with his tongue out, which is goofy and gratifying, but Tommy fixes his gaze on Lovett, mouth in a serious line. 

 

*

 

_ Tommy, 4:45 AM  _

_ Are you ready to get back to work? You weren’t there yesterday. _

_ Read at 4:45 _

 

_ Tommy 4:48 AM _

_ Are you avoiding Chris? _

_ Read at 4:48  _

 

_ Lovett 4:55 AM _

_ yes tommy i am avoiding the spin instructor. this is how i have chiseled this glorious physique, by being petty enough to not work out because chris didn’t like s2 of ozark _

 

_ Tommy 4:55 AM _

_ Are you avoiding me?  _

_ Read 4:55  _

 

_ Lovett 9:31 AM _

_ naw, just weekend. sometimes even a flawless body takes a sabbath. _

 

_ * _

 

Lovett makes a concerted effort to be normal at work on the other end of the weekend, for a given him-based value of normal. Loud, braggy, and a little obnoxious.

“Can I tell you something,” he says, during an ad read. 

“Is it about how people who aren’t Honey users are missing out and are literally only two clicks from the massive savings they could have?”

“No,” Lovett says. 

“In that case, no thank you,” Favs says. 

“Favs, this is important!” 

“More important than the fact that Honey as an extension works on all of the places you already shop?”

“Probably not,” Lovett says, cheerfully raising his volume to avoid Favs drowning him out. “I actually had to uninstall Honey.”

“Because,” Tommy ventures, because he’s a dick who likes to team up against him in the name of  _ keeping the ad read on-message,  _ “you wanted to experience the magic of downloading it and seeing your amazon cart get price-slashed like the very first time?”

“No, I can’t stand seeing the word. Because I’ve been living a life with minimal sugars, which I thought the years of diet coke had prepared me for but I was  _ wrong,  _ and I know that if I was in the room with a pot of honey like Winnie the fucking Pooh, I would legitimately die of honey overdose or get stuck in my own doorway.”

“We could make a shelf out of your ass,” Tommy says, thoughtfully. “It is a pretty great ass.” 

“This ad read has officially gone off the rails,” Favs says, putting his face in his hands.  

“You know what, Tommy, it  _ is  _ a great ass. It would be a privilege for you all to gaze upon it.” 

“Honey,” Favs says, which was stupid, because they’d have to scrap it. “Slather on the —” 

“Podcast host,” Tommy says, cackling.  

On the second take, Lovett makes bad Honey puns, gives ‘overtly sexual’ a wide berth. Tommy says,  _ Jon Lovett uses honey because it’s the closest he can get right now to feeling joy, which is a damn shame,  _ and Lovett says,  _ for those of you who aren’t watching the stream and are conducting your podcast business as a listening-only affair, just know you’re missing out because I look fantastic,  _ and Favs said,  _ Honey! An actual useful product that we’re advertising, despite some podcast co-hosts’ best efforts! I bought my beautiful wife Emily a present but we also share an amazon account so she went to buy some house essentials and the surprise was ruined! But she was still really pleased because I am a thoughtful gift giver and because of all the Honey-savings!  _

_ * _

Lovett isn’t actually avoiding Tommy, or the gym. He can’t actually afford to, because Tommy is his coworker and one of his long term best friends and because he’s going to be on TV in a few weeks and he literally does not have time to fuck around being weird about his own stupid unresolved feelings. 

He texts Tommy:  _ back to the grindstone tomo?  _ because he does hate going alone, and Chris’ playlist an occasional hot-takes about pop culture are generally unbearable, so much so that Louis doesn’t actually go here more often than strictly necessary. He definitely isn’t coming to be a buffer between him and his own best friend, who has done nothing wrong and now Lovett is being weird and dramatic. 

He even offers to pick him up, because he likes rolling up to Tommy and using Mean Girls references. 

Lovett runs a mile with Tommy on the treadmill to warm up before he goes and sits down on his arch nemesis machine. It’s supposed to target the arms and core, which Lovett is all about in theory, but in practice, he hates it. He is literally counting down the days until he can pretend he doesn’t recognize it when they pass each other in public, like a grinder hook-up that took a turn for the weird and you never make intentional eye contact with again. 

Tommy eases himself face down on a nearby machine where he can do calf curls while exuding an air of being completely at ease, one with the universe. 

Lovett taps into and utilizes that righteous fury to propel himself through about sixteen million reps, before Tommy says, “Hey Lo, you ready to call it?”

Which is honestly Tommy’s real redeeming quality as a gym buddy. He even has this party trick where Lovett can respond, “I dunno, seems like there’s still work to be done. Come on, do a few more reps with me.”

And Tommy will reply, something like, “No, sorry, I’m fucking wiped. If you need some time, I’ll just go look at the tee shirts.” every time. Lovett doesn’t know that he’s ever had to call time-of-death on a workout. 

In the car, Lovett makes the mistake of scanning the radio, and Tommy stops it at a station giving airtime to what sounds like a sad octogenarian with a violin, nodding in time. Because of his aforementioned getting them out of the gym in a way that made him a genuine MVP as a bro, Lovett allows it. 

“This is your stop,” Lovett says, too many country songs and an ad for Lasik later. 

“Yup,” Tommy says, popping the plosive sound in a way that Favs would have kicked him under that table for. 

“Good game,” Lovett says, to put a bow on it. 

Tommy leans towards Lovett in his Jeep, slow, and Lovett thinks —  _ this is absolutely not happening —  _ as Tommy presses his mouth to Lovett’s with a light touch, the ghost or suggestion of a kiss.

“Sorry,” Tommy says, but he’s smiling with his whole face the way Lovett likes best, his eyes and teeth and lips, shoulders loose. The sick fuck has the audacity to  _ wink.  _  “Couldn’t help myself.”

The door closes behind him and Tommy walks back up to his house, gait measured and posture enviable and Lovett screaming “What the  _ fuck,  _ Vietor!” from his own driver’s seat.  

*

Two hours later, Pundit races for the door before the knock, just after Lovett had changed out of his day sweats and into his nighttime sweats. He’s muttering under his breath about Favs’ shitty timing when he answers the door.

“Oh,” he says, surprised. “It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Tommy confirms. He has also changed, but like a microcosm of Lovett’s life, instead of Tommy being in his PM sweats and his offcourt buddies, he’s done a glow-up. He looks like a change in the weather, the first dip into fall: crisp and serious in a navy button down, top button undone. 

Lovett stoops down to pick up Pundit, and Tommy takes advantage of the distraction to touch her behind the ears. “Hello princess,” he cooes. Normally, Lovett loves it when his dog gets the proper attention she deserves. Now, he feels like snapping at Tommy that they are trying to restore  _ democracy.  _

“What,” Lovett says, wrong-footed, “sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I was going to text you,” Tommy says. 

“But,” Lovett prompts, after a pause. 

“But everything I wanted to say seemed jumbled when I couldn’t see your face,” Tommy says. 

“You’ve been sexually harassing me at work lately, which is fair, because turnabout is fair play and I’ve been doing it to you for a long time,” Lovett says, spitballing, “and then today, you took a joke too far and you came by to make sure I didn’t get the wrong idea.”

“Sexually harassing you!” Tommy yawps. He takes a step back and seems to visibly recalibrate his volume. “I’m sorry — can I come in. I’m feeling a little unhinged out here.”

Lovett moves back with Pundit to let Tommy in, and then puts her back down. 

“I do want you to get the wrong idea,” Tommy blurts. “I mean. You have the right idea.”

“Yeah, okay. And you’re dressed like you’re headed for a yachting weekend because?”

“Because you dress for the job you want,” Tommy says, laughing at himself. “I am either here for seduction or to make an apologetic press conference. This seemed like a multifunctional look.”

“You’re here to seduce me,” Lovett scoffs. 

Tommy says nothing, standing in a serent stillness. Lovett, in his shoes, would be shuffling from foot to foot, crossing his arms, and probably making crazy eyes. Tommy, who was grown in a lab and spent a lot of his adulthood in a highly scrutinized pressure cooker does none of those things. Lovett looks him up and down, eyes lingering on his hands, relaxed at his sides. That son of a bitch. 

“Alright, then,” Lovett says. “Seduce me.”

It’s bratty, it’s ridiculous, and it’s the moment where Tommy is either going to flinch or he’s going to — “Lovett,” Tommy says, and it’s said through an exasperated grin, the way he likes it best, the way Tommy says his name after a bad pun, “You’re killing me, smalls.”

“Sorry,” Lovett says, feeling a bit repentant. “I’ve had a weird day and it took a minute to decide if you’ve been doing a weird long-game fucking with me. Let me, let’s start over. Bring it in and we can have a team huddle.”

“Why would I be fucking with you?” 

“Oh, no reason,” Lovett says with an exaggerated eye roll, and not saying:  _ because I’ve gone through the fucking looking glass. _

Tommy moves towards him again, like he did in the office, the car. This time, Lovett doesn’t make him go the whole laying field, and meets him somewhere at the — Lovett starts desperately scrabbling for the right sports term for meeting someone twenty percent of the way before he decides that recognizing Tommy’s reference to the Sandlot was quite enough for one night. 

Either way, he collides with Tommy, warm and solid and silky-soft in his expensive shirt. Lovett can feel the heat of him, torso to torso and Tommy’s graceful hand curls under Lovett’s chin to tilt his head up. Up close, he can tell that Tommy is freshly groomed, smells the clean, masculine scent of Tommy’s aftershave, and Lovett lets his eyes fall closed. Tommy hovers over Lovett’s upturned face for long enough, however, that he opens them again. 

“Sometime today?” Lovett says, false and brash. He’s so worried, still teetering on the knife’s edge and unsure of the consequences. 

Tommy presses his mouth to Lovett’s, finally,  _ finally,  _ slow and sweeping and Lovett’s anxious, thready pulse translates pretty easily into a more sure excitement. Tommy is still holding his face, and wow, that is really doing it for him, and kissing him soundly, like the long pause before had been the time Tommy needed to evict all doubt that this is what he wanted to be doing. 

Tommy’s taller than Lovett and when Tommy hooks one hand in the pocket of Lovett’s hoodie to swing him forward, he feels the stirrings of Tommy’s cock between them, which is wildly gratifying. His stomach tightens with anticipation. 

Tommy kisses him careful and sure, steady as the sweep of sunrise. At some point, something hungry inside of Lovett reminded him that Tommy had touched his stomach at the office and that he’d like to return the favor. Lovett puts his hands on the button’s of Tommy’s shirt. 

“Wait,” Tommy says, without moving back. He’s basically talking right into Lovett’s mouth. “I meant to. Take you out? Do you want to — ” 

“Not necessary,” Lovett says, and pulled him back in by his lapels. “Can I take this off?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, undoing a button in the middle before he goes back up the the top to work his way down. “So hot,” Lovett mutters. “It’s not natural.”

“You're an idiot,” Tommy says, pulling his wrists out of the sleeves of his newly unbuttoned shirt. Lovett’s instincts are to toss it to the floor but Tommy moves to drape it over the back of the couch. Tommy doesn’t get shy with his shirt off, doesn’t change his open posture, just hooks his hands in his front pockets. He’s broad and lovely and Lovett wants to put his mouth on his shoulder, and since his whole world is upside-down, he thinks he’ll probably get to fulfill that one. 

“Can I invite you to my room? Does that sound too...”

“It sounds perfect,” Tommy cuts him off. “Although, knowing you, do you need a two minute head start to pretend you don’t have, like, fifteen cans of diet coke and a confusing clean-dirty laundry setup?”

“Well,” Lovett says. “I could do that. But who would I actually be fooling?” 

“Good point,” Tommy says, and followed Lovett into his bedroom.

*

After the first time, it’s like something has unlocked the floodgates. Tommy leans over Lovett while he’s spotting him at the gym to whisper something slutty in his ear, or tells him they should take a detour back to Tommy’s house, which is closer to the office, so Lovett can shower there. 

“There are … showers at the gym,” Lovett points out, helpfully. 

“Sure,” Tommy said. “And you’re super welcome to use them. I was just pointing out that there are also showers at my place.”

Lovett rolls his eyes. “I’m gross. You definitely don’t want me in your car like this.”

“I don’t think you’re gross,” Tommy says.

“Fine, you disgusting pervert, I will allow you to take me home and revel in my musk. Whatever.”

“Gracious of you,” Tommy says, but he can’t stop grinning.

He takes Lovett home. They don’t make it back to the office until ten. Tommy drives with one hand and puts on hand high on Lovett’s thigh, fingers tracing the inseam of his workout sweats in a way that has Lovett shifting in his seat. Tommy seems eager to strip Lovett down and sit on his hips, stroke them both off, kiss Lovett’s neck, scrape his teeth along his collar bone.

It’s incredible. If Lovett had known, that all it would take to get Tommy to be super into him was to spend three months doing food spreadsheets and switching to caffeine free diet coke so he could fill the empty spaces where he would put sandwiches at night if the space wasn’t already occupied, and getting up two hours early to go to the gym which was totally fun and not a drag at all, he would have done it years ago.

It was weirdly validating to realize he’d been right the whole time, even when friends and family had told him there was nothing wrong with the shape of him. The results don’t lie.

Lovett had assumed that after the final special was done and dusted, he was going to be able to put a bagel in each hand. He was looking forward to it, actually. Practically had it on the calendar. He was going to regress back to the way his body looked when regularly processing two AM leftover tacos and the twice-weekly strawberry milkshakes and chicken nuggets, and that was going to be fine.

Instead, Lovett gets down to 162 pounds and suddenly Tommy is into him, which is unexpected, but Lovett has never looked a gift blow-job in the mouth.

Instead, he continues unabated with his half-dozen alarms, set every four or five minutes between five and six to hit the gym before work more often than not and definitely on saturday, even when Tommy, who has taken to occasionally falling asleep in Lovett’s bed before either of them can discuss leaving, snakes an arm across Lovett’s torso and tries to convince him have a lie in. Lovett finds it irresponsible and frankly, rude. Lovett is trying to ride out this wave of being briefly and unexpectedly Tommy Vietor’s type in a way he can’t possibly maintain in the long-term, and Tommy is showing no consideration at all.

His arms look good and his stomach looks good and he’s been hovering at his college-weight for weeks, kept on the straight and narrow pathway of carb-free joyless living by the sexy carrot of Tommy’s lust.

 

It’s not a sustainable life. At some point, this resolve Lovett has been scraping the barrel for is going to run out, and Tommy will forget this brief fixation he had with Lovett when he was at his personal best. Damned if Lovett isn’t going to make the most of it.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys. I apologize for everything that stood between you and this chapter for five months. TBH I wrote most of this fic in one sitting. Then in November life did a thing and then my brain fell out of my head and I failed to be a person. Thank you for everyone who was patient with me, encouraging, dasyatidae and BeginningwithA and Agreatperhaps12 for letting me talk through this fic until they must have been sick of it, and Lal for giving me her thoughts and for all of the good pals I leaned on along the way. For Fizzy_smile who left a comment yesterday about how chapter one is kind of traumatic by itself and for encouraging me to get chapter two up, even though there are parts of it that can't seem to make me happy. All the mess is mine. That you to everyone who left an encouraging word on part one. You're all fantastic. <3 I live @ katiewont on tumblr and my inbox is always open. Be kind with yourselves, friends.

So it had taken eight years for the timing to be right. So what. Tommy literally could not have cared less, or been any happier.

They’re discreet, of course, Tommy wearing a face around the office he had perfected back in DC when they lived together called  _ I Like Lovett The Normal Amount.  _

He does not actually like Lovett the normal amount, but Lovett is private, and so he’ll go on like this as long as Lovett wants to. After this — the specials and the canvassing and the constant stress of the looming midterm, he’s going to ask what Lovett wants. But for now — being able to stop by Lovett’s after work and touch him like he’d wanted to for so long — it’s incredible. 

“Hey, Lovett,” Tommy says from between Lovett’s thighs. 

“Yeah, Tommy,” Lovett says, hiding his face in his elbow. 

“You’re great, and we’re in Miami,” he says, just to say it. God, he feels like a child again, like it’s summer and he has nothing to do except explore the outdoors on his ten-speed. Even with everything looming, he’s enjoying the low-level present excitement, like a perpetual mouth full of poprocks.  

“We’re in Miami, alright,” Lovett says. 

They didn’t go to the beach because a local made Lovett skittish about red tide, even though they’d reopened most of the Dade county beaches by Wednesday, but they go out to lunch with Lovett’s parents before the show and spent some time shopping in an open-air outlet. Lovett, Tommy is pleased to note, pinked up nicely under the sun and Tommy felt compelled to spread kisses across his barely-burnt skin, over and over again. 

Lovett had also accidentally located an edible shop, but then demanded Tommy leave with him without purchasing one for two main reasons. The first, he explained were the upfront carbs in the edible itself, and then there would be the unbearable feeling of unslaked munchies, which Tommy agreed sounded pretty terrible. 

Tommy makes a silent, giddy pact with himself to get high as hell with Lovett when this is all over. As soon as he thinks about it, he is charmed with the idea, getting high with Lovett, spreading him out on the couch and making out with him, both of them in sweats, Lovett’s humor going a little offbeat the way he remembers from the last time they’d smoked together, just after Tommy moved to LA. 

And somehow this is Tommy’s life, now, daydreaming about being with Lovett while he’s actually here with Lovett, kissing the ticklish juncture of Lovett’s thigh, late afternoon sun streaming through the window to lan on the planes of Lovett’s compact body, which Tommy is allowed to touch now.

“So good,” Tommy sighs, pressing his face against Lovett’s dick. It is hard and leaking, but in the sun and the excitement, Tommy can’t muster up a real sense of urgency. He just wants to touch every inch of Lovett, squirming and pink. Tommy, who Lovett had teased all weekend about being the kind of person who checked the expiration dates on 80 SPF sunscreen, was not feeling any discomfort. 

“Tommy, I am literally going to die,” Lovett says. 

“Someday,” Tommy agrees, unhurried, scraping his stubble against Lovett’ stomach. It is soft and quivering with Lovett on his back, reminding Tommy of the way Lovett had looked for most of their friendship. He misses it, a little, misses the shape of him in a slouchy tee, and misses the relaxed way they used to have breakfast with excessive amounts of cream cheese. He sort of hates the fact that he’d never had a chance to touch Lovett like this when he’d looked like that. 

And there Tommy goes again, high on the self-congratulatory feeling of being with a partner he was so into that he couldn’t stop daydreaming about it, even when he was actively having sex with that partner. Lovett squirmed again, beneath him, hips rolling in a way that jostled Lovett’s dick against his chin. “Alright, alright,” Tommy says, and leaning down to take Lovett in his mouth. His intent had been to stop teasing and go down on him but he accidentally takes a brief detour to drag Lovett’s dick across his face, a pleased noise unspooling from him without permission.  

Tommy put one hand on the back of Lovett’s calf, tracing the soft, ticklish hairs there while he put his mouth to work, hot and tight on Lovett’s cock, being careful not to jolt his own gag reflex. He’d done this before, one-offs with people he knew, but never with this kind of consistency. He wasn’t sure if it was the practice he was getting or the fact that he wanted Lovett so much that made it easy and fantastic. The sun was warm on his face and he closed his eyes against it. 

Lovett brushed a knuckle against Tommy’s eyelid. “You don’t look real,” Lovett said, sounding breathless. 

Tommy tilted his face into Lovett’s hand, pausing briefly, letting himself imagine that Lovett meant unusually handsome and not  _ uncanny valley.  _

He felt, strangely, like it might be appropriate to pull back and say thank you, but Tommy thought Lovett might appreciate it more if he let himself sink into the task, joyful and a little wild, stroking down Lovett’s side with one hand, letting his short nails catch on Lovett’s hip bones and down his thighs. Lovett’s body was strong and mobile beneath him, tensing, drawing, flexing. Lovett was quiet, except for the occasionally ragged breath and Tommy treasured the reactivity more than any dirty talk. 

Lovett came in Tommy’s mouth with an arched spine, Tommy’s broad hand supporting him, luxuriating in the bunched tension at the small of Lovett’s back. “Tommy,” Lovett said, while Tommy was still trying to get his bearings, swallowing carefully and wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist. 

“I’m here,” he said, stupidly, inanely, when he was able. Lovett made grabby hands at him, looking with soft eyes. 

“I know you are, let me get to your --” he said, tugging Tommy up the bed and up into his arms. Tommy landed on his side, face to face with Lovett and his open, ridiculous face. 

“You’re so cute,” Tommy said, which was dumb, probably, but Lovett’s face unfolded into a smile. 

“You’re so fucking weird,” Lovett said, and reached between them, and Tommy thought he was going for his cock, but he grabbed his hand on the way and gave it a squeeze. A helpless sound came out of Tommy’s mouth and Lovett’s grin turned pointed. “Alright,” he said. “I’ve obviously let your dick go far too long without attention,” and curled his hand around him. 

*

In Austin, the weather dips and Lovett wears his Vote Save America hoodie. He looks young in it, cute. After filming a skit on Tuesday, Tommy and Lovett went shopping and Tommy felt wildly compelled to put his hand in Lovett’s empty pocket. 

There was no one around to stop him, so he did. Lovett’s neck went pink and Tommy wanted to put his hand there, too, but he showed some self control. 

After the show aired, which they’d watched, ten Crooked employees and four plus-ones piled in the same hotel room, he said leaned in to ask Lovett, “Do you want to hit the hotel gym?” 

Lovett laughs, low. “It’s midnight, and all of our friends are here.” 

“Yes,” Tommy says, eyes landing briefly on the Favreau-Blacks, bright eyed and sleepy, Emily’s hand on Jon’s shirt, “that’s the idea.”

Lovett made his excuse, unfurled his body in one decadent yawn, exposing the line of his stomach. Tommy tried desperately not to look, and then they were both free. 

As Tommy had suspected, or, hoped, rather, the hotel gym was empty. 

His gaze fell on the bench and a fantasy sprawled out, instantly and somehow in slow motion a fantasy presented itself, and Tommy twisted, letting his back hit the bench. 

“Smooth,” Lovett said, smiling, and followed him, going automatically to spot him. 

“You could,” Tommy said, hesitating. Lovett raised one single eyebrow, and because Tommy’s brain was broken, he could feel his cock getting interested, “get on my lap.” 

Lovett rolls his eyes, which is funny because he’s looking up at Tommy from the bench. God, that view made Tommy want to pick him up and carry him off. “I’m gross. You definitely don’t want me like this.”

“I don’t think you’re gross,” Tommy says, painfully obvious. He’d meant to play it cool, of course, because he’s been into Lovett for most of a decade and Lovett just decided it might be worth it to let Tommy pitch a few innings this year, and that kind of disparity is awkward to work around. Mostly, though, he’s transparent. He knows it. Can’t seem to get a handle on it.

_ Easy, Vietor,  _ he tells himself, but then Lovett does situate himself on Tommy’s hips with Tommy prone below him, ad his bran goes wild instead, endorphins and adrenaline and Tommy throws his torso upwards to steal a kiss, before falling bado down with a thud. “One,” he counts out. Lovett laughs, and Tommy coiled again to smack a kiss against his mobile, laughing mouth. 

*

In Philadelphia, they ended up in an Airbnb with a walled-in hot tub and a pool that was probably too crisp to get until they’d overheated themselves in the tub. The four of them had a soak after they got home from the show, exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure. 

“Hey Tommy,” Favs says, looking meaningfully at the pool. “Come race me, like old times.”

“You guys did not have pool-related old times,” Lovett scoffed, which was fair, because he and Favs did sometimes fabricate  _ old times. _ This one was true though. “Count of three, tell me what state the old times happened in.”

Emily counted them in, and when Favs went “Ohio,” which was the actual answer, Tommy went “Iowa,” just to see Jon’s confusion. 

Emily laughed and Tommy laughed and Tommy went to do a quick lap with Favs. It did feel just like old times. He hadn’t — he hadn’t been in love in Ohio, but hope had bubbled in his chest the same way. When they got out, jumping and shivering, Emily and Lovett were both talking to each other but looking at them. Tommy wondered if Favs could tell that they were in the same boat right now, if it was as obvious to him as it was to Tommy how Lovett was looking at Tommy with the same expression Emily had. 

He wanted to talk to him, confide in his best friend, almost blurted it out right there, cold skin and warm significant others in the hot tub, but he swallowed it down. In November. After the show, after the midterms, after he knew Lovett would be okay with it, there would be time for the kind of all night teenage girl talk he had been craving with Favs since, well. Since Lovett had said,  _ Tommy, touch me,  _ and it had seemed, for the first time, like a real invitation. 

“Damn,” Favs says, blowing on his own hands. “That was too cold. Excuse me, I have to go smother my wife with my frozen body.” 

“Tom, as a friend, I’m going to need you to intervene,” Emily says. 

“Yeah,  _ Tom, _ ” Lovett says, smiling with the kind of mischief he has as the audience boos when he wants them to, “What kind of friend are you if you let the love of my life Emily get —” 

Tommy wrangles Favs back into the pool just as he’s beginning to suspect it, and Favs takes him in on the way down. Tommy knows, because he’s been paying attention for two years, that everything is tense and wrong, but grappling with Favs, falling back into the icy water, hearing Lovett laughing with Emily about how they might have just delayed the inevitable, Tommy thinks, if this is what it took, the whole world falling apart for the nation to wake up and stay awake, for everything that’s happening now, maybe he’s glad. 

“You did, you did,” Favs crows, and drags Tommy back over, picks him up and Tommy stops flailing, because he’s too close to Lovett and Emily, now, doesn’t want to elbow one of them in the face, so he mainly lets Favs shove him back into the hot tub. He flops against Lovett and hopes it looks like an accident, and that Emily and Favs are too preoccupied with Favs trying to press his entire cold body to Emily to look at them.  

Lovett’s skin is hot to the touch, or Tommy is an icicle, or both, and Tommy gives his hand a brief squeeze while no one is looking, something inside of him thrilling and thawing. Lovett gives him a look before darting his eyes to look at Emily and Favs. Tommy wishes desperately for privacy, that he’d be able to tug Lovett onto his lap and drag his hands down Lovett’s wet torso, and then, as if by magic, Favs is rising up out of the water, Emily in his arms. 

“Sorry guys, I’m exhausted,” Emily says, but she’s grinning. She fakes an enormous yawn, putting her hands in front of her mouth. “Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi.” 

“A real bummer,” Favs says, looking sweet and ernest down at Emily. 

How long can they hang out outside? Tommy pictures Favs and Emily, coming back out for something they’ve forgotten and thinks, well, that might be a relief, picturing Favs coming back out of the house and him seeing Tommy, with his mouth on Lovett’s neck and not shying away from the thought of it. It would not, actually, be the first time Jon Favreau had seen him in the act.

He waits about a minute, before he says, “Hey Lovett.”

“What kind of high school cliche are you,” Lovett says, which doesn’t seem like a no. Tommy ducks in to kiss him, soft and lippy, and escalates quickly, Lovett chasing his mouth. Tommy fisted his hand in the hip of Lovett’s trunks.

“I for one was not getting sucked off in hot tubs in high school,” Tommy said, pretending to be scandalized. 

“One! No one is sucking anyone off in the hot tub, at the moment. Number two! I think you’re lying, but I’ll let it slide if you rectify number one.” 

“Well, shit,” Tommy said, grinning. “You got me.” 

Tommy goes back to kissing him, steady and soft, the air freezing the tips of his ears. “I’m going to climb into your lap,” Tommy said, practically into Lovett’s mouth. 

“Did somebody teach you that in a dirty talk class,” Lovett said, laughing. “Like a five paragraph essay — tell em what you’re going to tell em, tell em, tell em what you told em?”

Tommy reminded himself that if he blushed, Lovett wouldn’t be able to tell in the light. “No, jackass, I wasn’t trying to do dirty talk. I was — nevermind.” 

“No,” Lovett said. “It was a very good idea. I’m, highly in favor.” 

“In that case,” Tommy grinned, and moved to straddle him. “You’re going to have to be very quiet.”

Not that he was opposed, really, to getting caught. It might be a relief, actually, to take matters out of Tommy’s hands, stop the constant loop of reminding himself to be patient, to be discrete, to not steal Lovett’s dumb “I-have-the-chews” snacks so that he could kiss him instead, which Tommy had been thinking of as a good alternative to  _ mouth boredom.  _

They get away with it. No one gets caught. Tommy hauls Lovett up to the edge of the tub and swallows to avoid contaminating other people’s hot tub water, and after, Lovett pulls him up, crushes Tommy to his chest. 

*

Back in LA, Favs offered to drive Lovett home but Tommy said, “I might as well take him, Lucca and Pundit are both staying with Priyanka, so we might as well stop by together.”

“Thanks though,” Lovett said, cheerfully. “Tell Emily that after I have proper dog time I will come by with a bottle of wine.”

Tommy and Lovett picked up their dogs and detoured to the park, leaning against each other on the bench. “I can’t even tell you how exhausted I am,” Lovett said. 

Tommy snorted into his hair. “Tell me about it. I feel like we all deserve a two-week nap.”

Tommy didn’t discuss dropping Lovett off at his place. If Lovett was out of clean clothes, Tommy could find some sweats that would fit him, and it would look totally natural, like happenstance and not like something Tommy was desperate to see. 

In the morning, Tommy thought, he would make pancakes. 

He wrangled Lovett into bed and they didn’t even fool around. Tommy barely got his shoes off. As a matter of fact, he suspected Lovett might have been the reason he didn’t wake up in them. Tommy drifted off with his face mashed into his pillow and one of Lovett’s hands warm against his hip, safe and peaceful and their dogs curled up on the massive dog bed on the floor. 

Tommy woke in the night, one arm and one leg dangling off the bed and rearranged himself to look at Lovett, who was breathing deeply, his face pressed against the pillow. Tommy watched him for a little while, letting himself imagine that his gaze might wake Lovett up, that he might open his eyes and stare back at Tommy, that the dark might be enough to let Tommy be honest. 

The sheer force of Tommy’s will did not wake Lovett up. Emboldened, Tommy moved in, curving his body to be a perfect match for Lovett’s, offset by half an inch.

He leaned in to kiss Lovett on the eyebrow, wondering what would happen if Lovett stirred, if Tommy would panic and pretend to be asleep. Lovett did not stir, so Tommy slung an arm back over him and let himself be pulled back under. 

In the morning, instead of getting to sleep in and then heat up the griddle, Lovett pokes Tommy on the shoulder until he cracks one eye open and says: “Hey, do you want to go on a quick run before the gym?” 

“Um, not even a little bit?” Tommy groans. “I want to have a stack of blueberry pancakes. The dogs want whipped cream. We could  _ get high. _ ” 

“Very short sighted of you,” Lovett said, with an uneasy grin. 

“You’ve been working very hard,” Tommy said. “May I perhaps try to sell you on: a nice nap until noon.” 

“We’re livestreaming election night,” Lovett reminded him. 

“How much difference could we possibly make between now and then?” Tommy asked, incredulous. His mouth felt stale. He didn’t wait for Lovett to answer. He turned over, hoping he hadn’t looked like a petulant child, but fearing that he might have. “Have fun.”

Lovett didn’t come back by eleven thirty, at which point Tommy took the dogs to the park. He’d felt badly by then, regretting being bitchy with Lovett. Expectations _ ,  _ he knew, were important to communicate. He couldn’t be pissed at Lovett that Lovett hadn’t read his mind and indulged. He would have to ask for what he wanted. 

Pundit got exactly what she wanted from Lovett, almost without fail, because she laid balls at his feet, because she barked when Lovett passed the milk-crake he kept the treats in, because she threw herself down and wigged until Lovett said,  _ okay, bossypants,  _ and put a hand on her belly. Tommy could do that. 

_ You should come home and get high with me,  _ Tommy tapped out. 

_ Tempting,  _ Lovett writes back, almost immediately.  _ Lots of work to do.  _

_ You never let me have any fun,  _ Tommy typed out, frowning. He put the laughing emoji down. 

_ When we take the gavel from PRFH,  _ Lovett said, which was fair. Pundit put one polite paw on Tommy’s knee, ball in her mouth. Tommy put his phone away. 

*

“Dear God of Rock and Roll and Political theater,” Tommy said, because it seemed like the finishing touch on their huddle. 

Favs squinted at him. “Couldn’t hurt.” 

“Oh no,” Lovett said. 

“Amen,” Tommy finished. “Seriously, though. I know everyone is exhausted. It’s been a long, I don’t know, but it feels like it’s been about a thousand years. I’m proud of each and every one of you, and we leave it all on the field one more day —” 

“In the spirit of taking the house, I will allow the sports metaphor,” Lovett said. 

“Big of you,” Tommy said, “anyways! One more day. Then, tomorrow, we’ll know we did our best, and we can all take a few days off. But today: you all look fucking great in clipboards.” 

“Good speech, Tommy,” Favs said. Tommy grinned at him, flipping him off. “No, really,” Favs laughed. “You do all look great in clipboards.” 

They split up, the last batch of Crooked interns and writers and volunteers and friends, the God of Political Theater invoked and the sun blinding overhead. Lovett in his pink hat. Tommy had a good feeling. 

The next day, they take the house. 

*

“Do you remember that time we got high in DC,” Tommy wanted to know. Favs was manning the grill, and he’d found himself bringing him a beer. Lovett, shirtless and in one of his Vote Save America hats, was sitting with Emily by the pool, holding her hand. 

“Which time?” Favs asked. “We used to — why don’t we do that anymore?”

“I don’t know. I smoked with Lovett when I first moved to San Fran but not since then.” 

“Tommy, the problem could be that we are all elderly now.” 

“Oh, come off it,” Tommy grinned. “I know you and Emily smoke.”

“That’s different. I have a beautiful youthful wife,” Favs said. He gave her a wave for good measure, as if Tommy didn’t know which beautiful woman at the party he might be talking about. She blew him a kiss. Lovett pretended to snatch it out of the air when it left her hand, and pretended to eat it, viciously. 

“Lovett’s in good spirits,” Favs said. 

Tommy smiled at him. “Aren’t we all?” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“I super do,” Tommy said, still grinning. 

“You bozo,” Favs said, but Tommy could tell. Favs tipped his head towards the pool, where Lovett and Emily seemed to have acquired more friends since Tommy had last looked. Tommy made a quick trip to the kitchen, Emily had made candied bacon and someone else had made brownies and he himself had picked up a truly magnificently sized guacamole. He made a fresh, interesting plate, and went back out, sitting himself on the end of Lovett’s pool chair. 

“Thomas,” Lovett said, laughter in his voice. “I have not been staking out this chair for an hour for you to come and try to take part of the territory. I’ve been camped out here like it’s black friday in 2005.” 

“It’s true,” Emily said, nodding sagely. “Lovett has had to move for an hour but you know how vicious our backyard is. Lovett had to pee in a bottle.”

“Not cute,” Lovett said. 

“Don’t listen to her,” Tommy said. “You’re always cute.” 

“And what am I — ” Lovett started to demand, loud, and Tommy cut him off by dragging a strawberry through the cream cheese dip and putting it straight into his mouth. Lovett’s eyelids fluttered closed. 

“You’re very cute, too, Lovett,” Tommy assured him, dryly, as if he was humoring Lovett and getting no thrills from the fact that he’d had a chance to say it in front of Emily, feeling lightheaded with his own daring. 

“Okay,” Lovett said, after he was done working around the strawberry. “Number one, don’t do that again, I am living a more wholesome life now, but I will forgive you for the — ” Tommy went to shove another berry in his mouth but Lovett smacked it out of his hand. 

“Party foul,” Emily said, looking at the pool where it was bobbing in the water. 

“Sorry,” Tommy and Lovett apologized, more or less simultaneously. 

“Didn’t realize we were still doing,” Tommy gestured, frowning. 

Emily’s mouth was tight around the corners. “Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true,” she said, which Tommy didn’t recognize, but didn’t actually sound happy. It sounded Orwellian. 

Lovett looked at her, sharply. “We’re not,” Lovett said. He reached over and picked up a cherry tomato from Tommy’s plate and crunched it between his teeth. “There’s just no reason why a human being needs a pile of sugar and cream cheese.” 

Emily also reached over to Tommy’s plate and swiped a defiant finger through the pile there and put it in her mouth, moaning theatrically. “Joy reasons,” she said. 

*

“When I go back to being, like, a gross consumer of sloppy joes and get back to business as usual in terms, of like, might waistline, are you gonna, like, be cool about it? Because this is probably my chance to say for the record is that my preference is to be totally ghosted on when I inevitably fall off your attraction radar.”

Tommy has literally just woken up and Lovett is already working himself up into a lather. “This conversation is. The premise is flawed, what the fuck,” he says, bleary eyed. Lovett is sitting up in bed, and Tommy props himself up on his elbows. “Start over. I missed something.”

“I just think it’s important to acknowledge that if things are going to go back to normal I need it to just happen. If we’re going to stay friends, I can’t possibly ever hear you verbally acknowledge the point where I start grossing you out.” 

Tommy does not feel sleepy anymore. “You think I’m going to stop being into you if you gain weight? That’s fucked up, Lovett. I was into you before, which, by the way, was just fine.”

“Oh, yes,” Lovett says, biting. “I totally remembered that part. All those years we were friends and I was a ball of butter and you were unhinged with lust about it. Like you wanted to touch any part of me six months ago.” 

Tommy rolled his eyes. “I was. I did! I hit on you when we lived together, and we’ve been flirting for a year on our weekly podcast. You’re the one who just got into me for real this year.” 

Lovett shoves his computer out of his lap, and the launches himself out of bed. His hair looks wild. “You did not. I would have remembered that.”

Tommy gets out of bed, too, feels unbearably vulnerable with Lovett spinning out above him. It feels painful to mention, but if Lovett’s going to be out there playing the martyr, it seems like he’s going to have to. “Yeah, I did. I came out as bi before you left DC and you went on this whole thing about how, like, an evolved man knows that just because someone is attracted to men it doesn’t mean they’re attracted to them specifically. It seemed like a pretty shitty attempt to let me down before I’d even had a chance to ask you out.”

Lovett’s teeth clicked with the force of how hard he snapped his mouth closed. “I was letting you know that I wasn’t taking your coming out as you coming onto me.”

“Yeah, well, I was trying to come onto you, so it felt kind of like a preempive no at the time, coming out of nowhere the way it did.”

“You — ” he spluttered, before he seemed to find his footing. “You kissed me after I got down to my goal weight. You made a move after I informed you that I had new abs.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because it seemed like a pretty clear invitation to touch you when you said  _ Tommy come touch my abs.  _ I will be both into you and incredible relieved if you ever go back to being 2016 Lovett, but 2018 Lovett’s flirtatious game is on point.”

The thing is, at first, Tommy had thought perhaps Lovett was joking, this performative wild, loud, unbalanced joke he might use to laughingly throw Tommy under the bus during an ad read. A dinner he had definitely known about and declined an invite to, a wine bottle that had been Tommy’s honest mistake, that time Tommy accidentally told Lovett the time in military format and couldn’t seem to live down. 

“You’re serious,” Tommy says, feeling blank. 

He gropes between the bed and the wall, where his phone has fallen down at some point in the night. He fishes it back up by the cord. “Let me show you the first time I realized I wanted you, physically.”

He was flipping, frantically. It was an old shot, taken by a white house photographer in the early days, but he did not have to go very far to find it. It had a special folder on the cloud, because it was too precious to him to let a phone falling in a hot tub remove it from his life. 

“Look at you here. That’s the first time I looked at you and thought. Well. You know what I thought.”

Lovett snatched Tommy’s phone from his hands. “No. Fuck off. That’s not. Look how gross my neck was. Look at the  _ multiplicity of chins. _ ” 

Tommy flicked him on the eye, slow enough that Lovett had time to get his eyelid down. “You bozo. Look at you. You were so happy, and you were helping Alyssa move those boxes into her office, and I could see your shoulder and I remember thinking,  _ man, those thighs do not quit.  _ I mean. You were attractive when we met, but you were kind of mean at first. And then I got to know you and you were funny and weird and  _ super mean _ when the fancy struck you, and, you know, it struck you often, but by then I was kind of getting into it.” 

“You. What.”

“I’m still into it, now. Your mean brain and your body. And I’d be into it if you put on sixty or eighty pounds, but let’s start with the natural shape you have when you’re not cranky and sucking on a single glucose tablet as a snack when you take out your dog and doing the regular amount of workouts a week. Frankly, keeping up with you has been exhausting.”

Lovett looked small in Tommy’s long sleeved shirt. Tommy wants to pick him up and put him back in bed, have this conversation as many times as he needs to, later. It occurs to him: he can. 

Tommy reaches for Lovett, drawing him against him until Lovett is hiding his face against Tommy’s chest. Tommy rubs his back with both hands. “Can we start this morning over? In like, three hours, maybe?”

Tommy feels him nod, and grapples them both back under his plush comforter, Lovett practically wedging himself under Tommy, which is exactly where Tommy wants him. 

Tommy nuzzled him. “To clarify.”

“I thought we were starting today over.”

“I changed my mind. I’m too awake now. You thought you happened to hit exactly the right body mass shape or weight or whatever to make my dick hard.” 

“I mean, it was a bit more of a nuanced take,” Lovett argued weakly. 

“Very dumb,” Tommy announced, and sat back up, using one arm to prop him up. “I am literally struck by how idiotic that was. You were just going to  _ ride out  _ my brief attraction to you? Lovett, we run a business together. Did it seem particularly near sighted of you to let it happen if you thought we were only going to hook up as long as you could maintain five days at Barry’s a week?”

Lovett mumbled something into a pillow. 

“What was that?” 

“I wasn’t thinking with my brain,” he clarified. “Also I overestimated how zealous I’d be able to force myself to get about Barry’s. I feel like every trainer is my arch nemesis.”

Something occurred to Tommy and he felt his brain go silent. “Lovett. Are you just — are we just getting off together, because apparently I haven’t gotten anything about this right since —” 

Lovett put his hand over Tommy’s mouth. “I like you, please stop talking.”

“The normal amount?” Tommy said, and immediately felt neurotic. 

“More than that,” Lovett said. Everything about him was unhinged. Tommy thought about the ass-backwards thinking that had led him to think Tommy had wanted to pound him at one specific weight and no more and felt dizzy. 

“We should, I mean. We could tell Favs about it. Make it official.”

Lovett squinted. “Is that how that works?”

“We should make it official,” Tommy said, aware he sounded unhinged. God, he and Lovett were a fucking match made in neurosis. “And then we should tell Favs, which would keep you from doing take-backs.” 

“Tommy, if you want to tell Favs about us, and how you’re so desperate to be my boyfriend, you can go ahead.” Lovett looked pleased, now, like he was really settling in. 

While he was being agreeable, Tommy wanted a few points of clarification. “And can we go back to eating bagels?”

Lovett laughed. Tommy pressed back into his space, twining his legs around Lovett’s, too clingy by half. “Twist my arm, why don’t you.” 

“And can we,” Tommy said, but Lovett wedged a knuckle between Tommy’s teeth. 

“Any more negotiations can take place at noon,” Lovett said, and leaned in to kiss the side of Tommy’s face, sweetly, “after my boyfriend goes on the coffee run.”

“By noon, sometimes the maple donuts are all gone,” Tommy said, blood pounding in his ears at the most salient word. He made an undignified, full-body wriggle and felt Lovett’s hand card through his hair.

 

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fwiw the thing this fic is missing the most is tommy getting a chance to smoke with lovett and get smoochy. stay sub’d if you want to see that (four or five months from now)

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I could use ten or fifteen tommyjon pals so pls come be my pal on tumblr @katiewont because i have so very many feelings and notfics and not enough places to put them. pls i am friendly and my crops are dry.


End file.
